The Dramatic Story of How One ‘White Passing’ Black Woman Found Her Way Into an Elite Women’s College Before it Was Integrated

Since its founding in 1861, Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, has been known as the place for the daughters of wealthy East Coast influencers to receive a liberal arts education. Although the school didn’t officially welcome Black students until the mid-1940s, there is an amazing story of one young Black woman who found her way into the prestigious institution four decades earlier.  

Video will return here when scrolled back into view

Meet the Masterminds Behind the Beats: Celebrating Black Music Producers by Region

view video

Meet the Masterminds Behind the Beats: Celebrating Black Music Producers by Region

Anita Florence Hemmings, who was a descendant of slaves, was among the over 100 young women who applied to Vassar College in 1893. Her fair skin allowed her to blend in with her white classmates, where she studied Latin, ancient Greek, French, and more. Other students described her as “an exotic beauty” and thought she may have Native American ancestry.

“The strength of her strain of white blood has so asserted itself that she could pass anywhere simply as a pronounced brunette of white race,” a Boston newspaper wrote about her in 1897.  

But just as she was set to graduate in 1897, Hemmings’ roommate made things messy and told her father that she had questions about her exotic-looking roomie’s background. The woman’s suspicion prompted her father to do some digging into Hemmings’ family tree, where a private investigator discovered that her family was keeping her African American heritage a secret – something they didn’t deny when asked.

“We know our daughter went to Vassar as a white girl and stayed there as such. As long as she conducted herself as a lady, she never thought it necessary to proclaim the fact that her parents were mulattoes,” Hemmings’ father told reporters at the time.

When the scandal broke, Hemmings pleaded her case to then-Vassar College President “Prexy” Taylor, who allowed her to receive the diploma she worked so hard to earn. After graduation, Hemmings returned to Boston, where she worked at the public library. She went on to marry Dr. Andrew Jackson Love, a Black New York City physician who was also passing as white. The couple lived and raised their three children in Manhattan as white.

Hemmings’ amazing story may be headed to the big screen. In 2018, Variety announced that actress Zendaya would produce and star in the psychological thriller “A White Lie,” based on Karin Tanabe’s book “The Gilded Years,” a novel based on Hemmings’ life at Vassar.